T. Sturge Moore - "Albert Durer"

R.V. Russell - "The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India Volume I (of IV)"

Maurice Leblanc - "The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman Burglar"

John Marshall - "A Short History of Greek Philosophy"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

The Far Horizon

L >> Lucas Malet >> The Far Horizon




Poppy stood still in the wind and wet, listening intently.

"For once," he went on exultantly, "it is my turn to give orders, my
fine lady, and yours to obey. If you interfere, in the smallest
degree, between Iglesias and me, I will call his attention to certain
facts, the appearance of which is highly discreditable to him. He will
pay to save his reputation, if he ceases to pay out of charity--not
that it is charity. He is making an investment of which, as a business
man, he fully appreciates the worth. If you interfere I will make his
position a vastly uncomfortable one. The women who keep Cedar Lodge
are as jealous as cats. It would not require much blowing to make that
fire burst into a very lively flame, I promise you."

"You live there, then?" Poppy said absently. "You live there?" live
there?"

"Yes," he answered. "Does that offend your niceness, too? Do you
consider the place too good for me? You need not distress yourself. I
have only one room, a small one--on the second floor immediately above
your friend's handsome sitting-room, but only half the size of it. The
floors are old. I can gather a very fair sense of any conversation
taking place below."

Poppy moved on again.

"May I inquire what you propose to do?" Smyth asked presently--"warn
your mature commercial admirer and compel me, in self-protection, to
blast his reputation, or hold your tongue like a reasonable woman?"

They had reached the end of the tarred palings. Upon the left the
quaintly irregular bow-windowed rose-and-ivy-covered houses of Barnes
Terrace--no two of them alike in height or in architecture--fronted
the road. Upon the right was the river, dull-coloured and wind-
tormented. A cargo of bricks, supplying a strong note of red in the
otherwise mournful landscape, was being unloaded from a barge; carts
backed down the slip to within easy distance of the broad bulwarkless
deck, horses shivering as they stood knee-deep in the water. The
bricks grated together when the men, handling them, tossed them
across. With long-drawn thunderous roar and shriek, a train, heading
from Kew Station, rushed across the latticed iron-built railway
bridge. Poppy waited, watching the progress of it, watching the
unloading of the barge. The one perfectly pure and beautiful gift
which life had given her was utterly profaned, so it seemed to her;
that which she held dearest and best hopelessly entangled with that
which to her was most degrading and abhorrent. And what to do? To be
silent was to be disloyal. To speak was to expose Dominic Iglesias to
dishonour and disgust far deeper than that which loss of money could
inflict. Poppy weighed and balanced, clear that her thought must be
wholly for him, not letting anger sway her judgment. Of two evils she
must choose that which, for him, was least.

"I will not give you away. I will say nothing," she said at last.

"You swear you will not?"

"Yes, I swear," Poppy said.

"I want it in writing."

"Very well, you shall have it in writing, witnessed if you like," she
answered. "The precious document shall be posted to you to-night. Now
are you satisfied, you contemptible animal? Have you humbled me
enough?"

But Smyth came close to her, pushing his face into hers. He was
shaking with excitement, hysterical with mingled fear and relief.

"I am not ungenerous, my dear girl," he whispered. "I am willing to
condone the past--to take you back, to acknowledge you as my wife and
let you share my success. There is a part in the new play which might
have been written for you. You could become world-famous in it. I am
not ungenerous, I am willing to make matters up."

"Do you want me to murder you, after all?" Poppy asked. "If you try me
much further, I tell you plainly, I can't answer for myself.
Therefore, as you value your life, let me alone. Get out of my sight."




CHAPTER XXVII


During the watches of the ensuing night, amid bellowings of wind in the
chimneys, long-drawn complaint of the great cedar tree, rattle of sleet,
and those half-heard whisperings and footsteps--as of inhabitants long
since departed--which so often haunt an old house through the hours of
dark, Dominic Iglesias' mind, for cause unknown, was busied with
reminiscences of the firm of Barking Brothers & Barking, and the many
years he had spent in its service. He had no wish to think of these
things. They came unbidden, pushing themselves upon remembrance. All
manner of details, of little histories and episodes connected both with
the financial and human affairs of the famous banking-house, occurred to
him. And from thoughts of all this, but transmogrified and perverted,
when, towards dawn, the storm abating, he at length fell asleep, his
dreams were not exempt. For through them caracoled, in grotesque and most
irregular inter-relation, those august personages, the heads of the firm,
along with his fellow-clerks, living and dead, that militant Protestant,
good George Lovegrove, and the whole personnel of the establishment, down
to caretaker, messenger-boys, porters and the like. Never surely had been
such wild doings in that sedate and reputable place of business--doings
in which gross absurdity and ingenious cruelty went hand in hand; while,
by some queer freak of the imagination, poor Pascal Pelletier, of hectic
and pathetic memory, appeared as leader of the revels, at which the Lady
of the Windswept Dust, sad-eyed, inscrutable of countenance, her
dragon-embroidered scarf drawn closely about her shoulders, looked on.

Dominic arose from his brief uneasy slumbers anxious and unrefreshed. The
phantasmagoria of his dream had been so living, so vivid, that it was
difficult to throw off the impression produced by it. Moreover, he was
slightly ashamed to find that, the restraining power of the will removed,
his mind was capable of creating scenes of so loose and heartless a
character. He was displeased with himself, distressed by this outbreak of
the undisciplined and unregenerate "natural man" in him. Later, coming
into his sitting-room, he unfortunately found matters awaiting him by no
means calculated to obliterate displeasing impressions or promote suavity
and peace.

For the pile of letters and circulars lying beside his plate upon the
breakfast-table was topped by a note directed in de Courcy Smyth's nervous
and irritable hand. Dominic opened it with a curious sense of reluctance.
Only last week he had lent the man ten pounds; and here was another
demand, couched in terms, too, so bullying, so almost threatening, that
Dominic's back stiffened considerably.

Smyth requested, or rather commanded, that fifty pounds should be
delivered to him without delay. "It was conceivable that Mr. Iglesias had
not that amount by him in notes. But, since he had really nothing to do,
it would be a little occupation for him to go and procure them." Smyth
insisted the money should be paid in a lump sum, adding that, his time
being as valuable as Iglesias' was worthless, he could not reasonably be
expected to waste it in perpetual letters respecting a subject so
essentially uninteresting and distasteful to him as that of ways and
means. Such correspondence annoyed him, and put him off his work; and, as
it clearly was very much to Iglesias' interest that the play should be
finished as soon as possible, it was advisable that he should accede to
Smyth's present request without parley and pay up at once.

Reading this mandatory epistle, Dominic was gravely displeased and hurt.
Poppy St. John had warned him against the insatiable and insolent greed
of persons of this kidney. He had discounted her speech somewhat,
supposing it infected with such prejudice as the recollection of private
wrongs will breed even in generous natures. Now he began to fear her
strictures had been just. The egoism of the unsuccessful is a moral
disease, destructive of all sense of proportion. Those suffering
from it must be reckoned as insane; not sick merely, but actually
mad with self-love. Smyth, to gain his play a hearing, would beggar
him--Iglesias--without scruple or regret. But Dominic had no intention
of being beggared in this connection. Thrice-sacred charity is one story;
the encouragement of the unlimited borrower, the fostering of so colossal
a selfishness quite another. A point had been reached where to accede
to Smyth's demands was culpable, a consenting, indeed, to wrongdoing.
Here then was occasion for careful consideration. Iglesias gravely laid
the offensive missive aside, and proceeded to eat his breakfast before
opening the rest of his letters. In the intervals of the meal he glanced
at the contents of the morning paper.

The war news was unimportant. A skirmish or two, leaving a few more
women's lives maimed and hearts desolate. A lie or two of continental
manufacture, tending to blacken the fair fame of the most humane and
good-tempered army which, in all probability, ever took the field.
A shriek or two from soft-handed sentimentalists at home, who--for
reasons best known to themselves--are ardent patriots of every country
save their own. Such items formed too permanent a part of the daily menu,
during the year of grace 1900, to excite more than passing notice. At the
bottom of the column a paragraph of a more unusual character attracted
Iglesias' attention. It announced it had authority for stating that
Alarmist rumours, current regarding the unstable financial position of
a certain well-known and highly respected London bank, were grossly
exaggerated. No doubt the losses suffered by the bank in question had
been severe, owing to its extensive connection with land and mining
property in South Africa, and the disorganisation of business in that
country consequent upon the war. The said losses were, however, of a
temporary character, and had by no means reached the disastrous
proportions commonly reported. Granted time, and a reasonable amount of
patience on the part of persons most nearly interested, the storm would
be successfully weathered, and the bank would resume the leading position
which it had so long and honourably enjoyed. No names were given, but
Iglesias had small difficulty in supplying them. It appeared to him that
Barking Brothers must be in considerable straits or they would never,
surely, put forth disclaimers of this description. His mind went back
upon the dreams which had left such disquieting impressions upon his
mind. In the light of that newspaper paragraph they took on an almost
prophetic character. Absently he turned over the rest of the pile of
letters, selected one, the handwriting upon the envelope of which was at
once well-known and perplexing to his memory, opened it, and turned to
the signature to find that of no less a personage than Sir Abel Barking
himself.

During the next quarter of an hour Dominic Iglesias lived hard in
thought, in decision, in struggle with personal resentment bred by
remembrance of scant courtesy and ingratitude meted out to him. He
learned that Messrs. Barking Brothers & Barking's embarrassments did, in
point of fact, skirt the edge of ruin. Their affairs were
in apparently inextricable confusion, owing to Reginald Barking's
reckless speculations, while, to add to the general confusion, that
strenuous young man had broken down utterly from nervous verstrain,
and was, at the present time, incapable of the slightest mental or
physical exertion. Things were at a deadlock. "Under these terrible
circumstances," Sir Abel Barking wrote, "I turn to you, my good
friend, as a person intimately acquainted with the operation of our
firm. Your experience may be of service to us in this crisis, and,
in virtue of the many benefits you have received from us in the
past, I unhesitatingly claim your assistance. In my own name and
that of my partners, I offer to reinstate you in your former
position, but with enlarged powers. It has always been my
endeavour, as you are well aware, to reward merit and to treat
those in our employment with generosity and consideration. You will
be glad, I am sure, to embrace this opportunity of repaying, in
some small measure, your debt towards me and mine." More followed
to the same effect. Neither the taste of the writer nor his manner
of expression was happy. Of this Dominic was quite sensible.
Patronage, especially after his period of independence, was far
from agreeable to him. Yet behind the verbiage, the platitudes and
bombastic phrases, his ear detected a very human cry of fear and
cry for help. Should he accede, doing his best to allay that fear
and render that help?

He rose, still holding the wordy letter in his hand, and paced the room.
Of his own ability to render effective help, were he allowed freedom of
action, Iglesias entertained little doubt--always supposing that the
situation did not prove even worse than he had present reason for
supposing. It was not difficult to see how the trouble had come about.
The senior partners, lulled into false security by lifelong prosperity,
had grown supine and inert. Sooner, in their opinion, might the stars fall
from heaven than the august house of Barking prove unsound of foundation
or capable of collapse! To hint at this, even as a remote possibility, was
little short of blasphemous. Their amiable nephew, meanwhile, had
regarded them as a flock of silly fat geese eminently fitted for plucking.
He let them complacently hiss and cackle, congratulate themselves upon
their worldly wisdom and conspicuous modernity, while, all the time,
silently, diligently, relentlessly plucking. Now, awakening suddenly to
the fact of their nudity, they were in a terrible taking; scandalised,
flustered, very sore, poor birds, and quite past recollecting that
feathers grow again if the system is sound and the cuticle health. To
Iglesias these purse-proud, self-righteous, middle-aged gentlemen
presented a spectacle at once pathetic and humorous in their present sad
plight. A calm head and clear judgment might do much to ameliorate their
position, and a calm head and cool judgment he was confident of
possessing. Only was he, after all, disposed to place these useful
possessions at their service?

For in the last nine months Dominic Iglesias' habits and outlook had
changed notably. The values were altered. It would be far harder to
return to the monotonous routine of business life now--even though a
fine revenge, a delicate heaping of coals of fire, accompanied that
return--than it had been to part company with it last year. Loneliness,
the emptiness induced by absence of definite employment, no longer
oppressed him. Holy Church had cured all that, giving him a definite
place, and definite purpose, beautiful duties of prayer and worship, the
restrained, yet continuous, excitement of the pushing forward of soul and
spirit upon the fair, strange, daily, hourly journey towards the far
horizon and the friendship of Almighty God. His retirement had become very
dear to him, since it afforded scope for the conscious prosecution of that
journey. Dominic's state of mind, in short, was that of the lover who
dreads any and every outside demand which may, even momentarily, distract
his attention from the object of his love. Threadneedle Street, the
glass and mahogany walled corridors, and the moral atmosphere of
them--money-getting and of this world conspicuously worldly--were not
these ironically antagonistic to the journey upon which he had set forth
and the habit of mind necessary to the successful prosecution of it? There
was Poppy St. John, too, and the closer relation of friendship into which
he had just entered with her. This must not be neglected. And, thinking
of her, he could not but think of that younger son of the great
banking-house, Alaric Barking, and his dealings with her--enjoying her as
long as it suited him to do so, leaving her as soon as his passion cooled
and a more advantageous social connection presented itself. Towards the
handsome young soldier Iglesias was, it must be owned, somewhat merciless.
Why should he go to the rescue of this young libertine's family, and
indirectly facilitate his marriage, and increase its promise of happiness,
by helping to secure him an otherwise vanishing fortune? Let him pay the
price of his illicit pleasures and become a pauper. Such a consummation
Dominic admitted he, personally, could face with entire resignation.

And yet--yet--on closer examination were not these reasons against
undertaking the work offered him based upon personal disinclination,
personal animosity, rather than upon plain right and wrong, and,
consequently, were they not insufficient to justify abstention and
refusal? That earlier dream of his, on the night following his dismissal
last year, came back to him, with its touching memories of the narrow town
garden behind the old house in Holland Street, Kensington--the golden
laburnum, the shallow stone basin beloved of sooty sparrows, poor, dear
Pascal Pelletier and his Huntley & Palmer's biscuit-box infernal machine
and very crude methods of adjusting the age-old quarrel between capital
and labour. On that occasion the lonely little boy, though at risk of
grave injury to himself, had not hesitated to save the ill-favoured
chunk-faced grey cat--which bore in speech and appearance so queer a
likeness to Sir Abel Barking--from the ugly fate awaiting it. He had
gathered it tenderly in his arms, pitying and striving to heal it. Was the
child, by instinct, finer, nobler, more self-forgetful, than the man in
the full possession of reason, instructed in the divine science, fortified
by the example and merits of the saints? That would, indeed, be a
melancholy conclusion. And so it occurred to him, not merely as
conceivable but as incontestable, that the road to the far horizon,
instead of leading in the opposite direction to the city banking-house,
for him, at this particular juncture, led directly into and through it; so
that to refuse would be to stray from the straight path and risk the
obscuring of the blessed light by a cowardly and selfish lust of the
immediate comfort of it.

He would go and help those distracted plucked geese to grow new feathers.
Only to do so meant time, labour, unremitting application, a wholesale
sacrifice of leisure; so he must see Poppy St. John first.




CHAPTER XXVIII


"I did not call yesterday," Iglesias said, "in consequence of your
prohibitory telegram. But to-day I have come early and without permission,
first because I was anxious to assure myself you were really unhurt, and
secondly because something has occurred regarding which I wish to
consult you. I must have your sanction before taking action in respect of
it."

Entering from the blustering wind and keen, fitful sunshine without, the
little drawing-room struck Iglesias as both stuffy and dingy. And Poppy,
standing in the centre of it, huddled in a black brocade tea-gown, a
sparse pattern of bluey mauve rosebuds upon it, which hung in limp folds
from her bosom to her feet, concealing all the outline of her figure, came
perilously near looking dingy likewise. The garment, cut square at the
neck, had long seen its first youth. The big outstanding black ribbon bow
between her shoulders and that upon her breast was creased and crumpled.
Beneath the masses of her dark hair her face looked almost unnaturally
small, sallow and bloodless, while her eyes were enormous--dusky
dwelling-places, as it seemed to her visitor, of some world-old sorrow.
Her face did not light up, neither did she make any demonstration of
gladness or greeting, but stood, one toy spaniel tucked under either arm,
their forelegs lying along her wrists, their fringed paws resting upon her
palms. Dominic had a conviction she had snatched up the little dogs on
hearing his voice, and held them so as to render it impossible for him to
take her hand. Less than ever, looking upon her, had he any mercy for
Alaric Barking. Less than ever did the prospect of spending weeks, perhaps
months, in shoring up the imperilled fortunes of that young gentleman's
family prove alluring to him.

"You were hurt," he broke out, almost fiercely. "You are suffering, and,
worse, you are unhappy. It makes me very angry to see you thus. I wish I
could reach those who are guilty of having distressed and injured you."

Poppy's face went a shade paler, and alarm mingled with the sorrow in her
eyes, but she made a courageous effort to patter as usual.

"You'd give them the what for, dear man, wouldn't you?" she said. "But you
would have to go way back in the ages for that, and get behind the
seed-sowing of which this gay hour is the harvest. Still, I love to see
you ferocious. It is very flattering to me, and it's mightily becoming to
you. Don't snore, Cappadocia. Manners, my good child, manners. All the
same, I wasn't hurt slipping on those gorgeous white steps of yours. Upon
my honour, I wasn't. But I had to go out yesterday afternoon, and I got
caught in one of those infernal hailstorms. It was altogether too cold for
comfort, and I feel a bit cheap this morning in consequence. That's why I
put on this odious gown. I always try to dress for the part, and the part
just now is dismality. From the start this gown has been a disappointment.
I counted on the roses fading pink, but the beasts faded blue instead. I
feel as if I was dressed in a bruise, and that's appropriate--for I also
feel as if I had been beaten all over. Merely the hail--I give you my
word. Nothing more than that. I'm never ill." Poppy paused, dropped the
little dogs on the floor. They cowered against her, looking up woefully at
her. "No, I don't want you," she said. "You're heavy. I'm tired of you."

Then she blew her nose, and, over the top of her hand-kerchief, looked
full at Iglesias for the first time.

"Well, what is it? What do you want my sanction for?"

Without waiting for his answer she swept aside, knelt down, crouching over
the fire, extending both hands to the heat of it, while her open sleeves
falling back showed her arms bare to the elbow.

"Tell me, and, if you don't mind, shove along. I own I am a trifle
jumpy--only the weather--but I need humouring, so shove along, there's a
good dear," she said.

Whereupon, in as few words as possible, Dominic unfolded to her the
contents of Sir Abel Barking's letter. As she listened, Poppy raised
herself, turned round, stood upright, her hands clasped behind her.

"Oh! that's it, is it?" she said. She looked less bloodless, more
animated, more natural. "I'm not altogether surprised. The poor old lads
have found out the cuckoo in their nest at last, have they? Alaric had a
notion Reginald Barking--not a nice person Reginald--I saw him once and
he looked a cross between a pair of forceps and a bag of shavings--I
didn't trust him--you don't, do you? Alaric had a notion this precious
cousin was making hay of the whole show. But it was utterly useless for
him to intervene. In the eyes of the elder generation he is the original
dog with a bad name, only fit for hanging."

Poppy paused, took a long breath, smiled a little.

"What do you think? Is it a very bad business?"

"I cannot tell till I have gone into details," Iglesias replied. He was
slightly put about by the lady's change of demeanour, by the interest she
displayed, by the alteration in her expression and bearing.

"And they howl to you to save the sinking ship?" Poppy continued lightly.
"Shall you go?"

"That is the question I have come to ask you."

"To ask me?" she said. "But, heart alive, dear man, where do I come in?"

"My duty to you stands before every other duty," Iglesias answered
gravely. "Those who have caused you sorrow and injured you, are my
enemies. How can it be otherwise? A member of this family--I do not choose
to name him--has, in my opinion, played a detestable part by you;
therefore only with your sanction, freely given, can I consent to be
helpful to his relatives."

The colour leaped into Poppy's cheeks, the light into her eyes, her lips
parted in pretty laughter; yet she still kept her hands clasped behind her
back.

"Ah! I see--I see," she cried. "But how did you contrive to get left
behind, most beloved lunatic, and be born five or six centuries out of
your time into this shouting, pushing, modern world which knows not
chivalry? Do you imagine this is the fashion most men treat women? Here
I am laughing, yet I could cry that you should come to me--me, of all
people--on such a lovely, fine, fanciful errand."

"My conduct appears to me perfectly obvious and simple," Iglesias replied
rather coldly.

"I know it does, my dear, and there's the pathetic splendour of it," Poppy
declared, soft mothering tones in her voice. "All the same we must keep
our heads screwed on the right way. So, tell me, will it be of any
personal advantage to you to help pull these elderly plungers out of the
quagmire?"

"None whatever."

"At least they will make it worth your while by paying up handsomely?"

"No doubt they will make me some offer, but I shall decline it," Iglesias
said. "I draw a pension. I will continue to do so. That is just. I have a
right to it in virtue of my past work. But I shall refuse to accept any
salary over and above that. I shall make it a condition that I give my
services. And that which I give I give, whether it be to king or to
beggar. To make profit out of my giving would be intolerable to me."

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